Scott Walker: Crusader Against Abortion

In all of the furor over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s bill to curb the power of public employee union to careen the state of Wisconsin into insolvency, other stances of the Governor have been overlooked. Leftist magazine Mother Jones notes in a current story that Walker is an ardent foe of abortion:

Walker, the son of a minister, attended Marquette University in Milwaukee from 1986 to 1990, where he served as chair of Students for Life. He dropped out of the school without graduating in 1990, and unsuccessfully ran for the Assembly that fall. He ran again in 1993 in a special election and won an Assembly seat representing Wauwatosa, a city just outside of Milwaukee. It didn’t take long for him to take up the abortion fight.

In November 1996, Walker and Assemblywoman Bonnie Ladwig R-Caledonia announced plans to introduce a bill banning “partial-birth” abortions, or what’s medically known as dilation and extraction. Anti-abortion groups have condemned the practice, but groups that back abortion rights argue the procedure could save a woman’s life in the case of severe late-term complications during a pregnancy. Walker said partial-birth abortions are “never needed” to save lives, adding, “This procedure is not a medically recognized procedure.”

Go here to read the whole story. Most of the comments to the story from Leftist pro-aborts are predictable and frequently hilarious, but I was quite happy to see some pro-life comments also.

72 Responses to Scott Walker: Crusader Against Abortion

I’ve been married to a nurse for 33 years (we were six years old!?). I was present for the births of three sons.

Governor Walker speaks truth to murderers.

The whole premise is a lie. The inducement of labor (I saw it with Number One Son) is highly stressful for the mother. If the murderers intend to save both critically-ill mother and baby, they would perform a C-Section.

But, for infanticide to meet the test for “basic human right,” the murderers must induce labor, turn the doomed baby into the breach (legs first) birth position (dangerous) and over-stress the (weakened, severely ill?) mother so they can kill the baby before the baby is “born”, i.e., completely out of the birth canal.

Voting for peace and “social justice” has kept this monstrous murder mill running; and (added bonuses!) given us a third war, 9% unemployment, $4 a gallon gasoline/home heating oil, bankrupt state and local governments, shuttered clinics and hospitals, etc.

Gov. Walker is the son of a Methodist minister. Although not of the Faith, he is our brother in Christ.

I am deeply depressed these days. I see and hear Walker and the GOP slandered incessantly on a daily basis and I see the Democrat State Senators who hightailed it to Illinois hailed as heroes, not cowards. Up is down, and black is white in my little lefty corner of the world. Only teachers are workers, apparently; the rest of us who pay teacher’s salaries without having anything close to their benes and pensions are, apparently – well, we just don’t count.

I must go to confession, for I know despair is a sin, and yet I find it very difficult not to despair in these days when every value I hold dear is held up to ridicule and the craven and corrupt are called heroes.

I must keep reminding myself that the little very liberal corner of Wisconsin I live in is not the universe. And yet, since the days of Terri Schaivo and the Obama infatuation, it is difficult to persuade myself that my views are the views of some sensible majority.

Gov. Walker,
I will side with him with this topic, but I still think overall he as corrupt as many politicians. Getting rid of collective bargaining and the means in which he did was just wrong.

@Donna : “Only teachers are workers, apparently; the rest of us who pay teacher’s salaries without having anything close to their benes and pensions are, apparently – well, we just don’t count.”
We pay for the salary, but not these pensions it is 100% funded by the teachers. Now it is sad to see the middle class eat each other because one person has something more than the other. That if I can recall is a SIN. If you think 52k is a lot then I feel you need to see what the medium income is in the united states. I help my community by on occasion substitute teach and see that the salary is low in my opinion because many of the teacher in my community they stay overtime and come before class to help these children. I am a person that would gladly pay an extra 20-30% in taxes if it went to education,fire/police, and infrastructure. But instead I just saw my elect officials increase their salaries and lowered education funding while cutting teachers. To be honest its these elected officials are the people we should be targeting about taking our money not the teachers and police/fire! I would like to see any elected office Demo/Rep vote on having a paycut for themselves for the next 5 years.. we will see that when pigs fly..

“It is sad to see the middle class eat each other because one person has something more than the other. That if I can recall is a SIN.”

I have to agree. Although I believe Gov. Walker has good intentions, the manner in which he and other leading conservatives and GOP figures are going about attacking the problem of public employee pay and benefits bothers me greatly.

Yes, reforms are needed, and local and state governments can’t go on forever supporting levels of pay and benefits that are unsustainable. Even the most liberal Illinois Democrats are beginning to realize this — they have of late been seriously discussing measures likely to incur the undying wrath of AFSCME, such as not allowing managerial-level employees to join unions and cutting back future pension benefits for CURRENT employees even though such a move is likely to be declared an unconstitutional breach of contract. But, I digress.

In many cases, the problem was NOT that “greedy” public employees demanded too much, it was that elected officials PROMISED too much, and then never bothered to properly fund those promises. In many cases they went so far as to borrow — or more precisely, steal — money that they knew ought to go toward pensions to spend on pork projects and other vote-getting measures without having to raise taxes.

Skipping or deferring pension payments is a very popular state budget “balancing” tactic used by BOTH parties. It “worked” in the 1980s and 1990s and for most of the 2000s only because most pension fund investments performed well enough to make up for the money that hadn’t been paid in.

Something else that bothers me is seeing the pro-life cause tied so closely to economic conservatism. If I didn’t know better from having been pro-life all my life, I’d get the impression from the media and from blogs on both sides of the aisle that being anti-union, condemning all public employees as “parasites”, rigidly opposing tax increases of any kind for ANY reason, insisting upon tax breaks for big business while imposing draconian budget cuts upon the middle class and poor, and insisting that everyone (except big business owners) should be knocked down to a Wal-Mart level of pay and benefits are a “package deal” that goes hand in hand with being pro-life and pro-marriage.

If one part of this policy package fails to perform as advertised it will drag down the credibility of everything else associated with it, including pro-life. And that, my friends, is why we must NEVER give up on trying to establish a pro-life presence in BOTH parties. This is too important an issue to be tied down to one party or one faction within it.

“And that, my friends, is why we must NEVER give up on trying to establish a pro-life presence in BOTH parties. This is too important an issue to be tied down to one party or one faction within it.”

That was my position Elaine, up until the passage of the Obamacare debacle, when it was revealed that for all the energy put into attempting to establish a pro-life presence in the Democrat party, perhaps 10 of the Democrats in Congress were truly pro-life. Pro-lifers who are Democrats will always have my best wishes for their efforts, but I think their attempt is bound to fail. The modern Democrat party has at its core a committment to keeping abortion legal. That party will compromise on almost everything else, but not on that issue. It might help of course if pro-life Democrats would emphasize that they will not vote for pro-abort Democrats, but I think the pro-abort powers that be in the Democrat party long ago decided that the sacred right of abortion is worth losing disgruntled pro-life votes.

“Now it is sad to see the middle class eat each other because one person has something more than the other. That if I can recall is a SIN.”

Rubbish. It is called taxpayers realizing that the sweetheart deals between politicians and the public employee unions, which are more accurately characterized as bribes, are bankrupting states and literally cannot be paid. This day has been coming for decades and since states cannot print money out of thin air like the Feds, there is no alternative to it.

“It’s not just about being against something, it’s believing that every individual deserves dignity and respect, whoever they are, at whatever stage of life they’re in,” Lipinski said. “That is something I hear my Democratic colleagues say. And I say that it’s self-evident that the individual is there at conception.”

“We know that at conception, the genetic code is there, for a unique individual. This is not something that is just a religious belief,” Lipinski said. “If you look at what we know about reproduction, you can see it.”

That is what representative Bill Lipinski (D.Ill) said in explaining his no vote on final passage of Obamacare. He is one of the true pro-life Democrats in Congress. For him proclaiming himself pro-life simply wasn’t part of a marketing strategy, which apparently was all it was for most self-proclaimed pro-life Democrats in the last Congress.

“it is sad to see the middle class eat each other because one person has something more than the other. That if I can recall is a SIN. If you think 52k is a lot then I feel you need to see what the medium income is in the united states.”

Alex, you have forgotten to mention the gold-plated benefits and pension plans, which is something the overwhelming majority of Americans do not get. It is the middle class majority comprised of non-public employees who are footing the bill so a small minority of their peers can enjoy perks and privileges the rest of us do not get. Walker’s reforms are actually very modest, and yet the unionists are screaming like scalded cats. The system as presently scheduled prevents any true reform of our educational system, because poor teachers with seniority cannot be fired.

Collective bargaining is a privilege, not a “right” Moses came down the mountain with. Federal employees don’t have it, teachers in right-to-work states don’t have it. May I ask why teachers should not have the right to choose whether or not they belong to a union? Why should they be forced to join a union and have their dues used to fund Democratic causes and candidates they may not personally support themselves? If being in a union is so wonderful, I would think they would be happy to pull out the checkbook themselves instead of the state withholding dues. (And why on earth is the state in the business of withholding union dues anyway.)

Elaine and Alex, do you really comprehend the magnitude of the fiscal disaster that is headed our way? If you think Scott Walker is being a meanie now, just wait until those government checks start bouncing. Part of the problem is that Americans generally agree that oh, yes, we’re spending way to much – but don’t you dare cut MY programs, my entitlements, my benes. Go cut somebody else’s – take more money from the corporations (nevermind that as of April 1, the US will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world and that the unions putting the screws to The Man is a big part of the reason Detroit has become the glorious garden spot it is.)

The lefties I hear everyday bang on about taking all the money from the rich. That certainly worked so well for everybody in 1917. One small problem – the total net worth of US billionaires is about $1.3 trillion – which doesn’t even cover US debt for 1 year. We are spending money which does not exist.

DeTocqueville pointed out many years ago that once the populace discovered they could vote themselves largesse out of public funds, the American republic would be in danger, because people would eventually vote themselves into bankruptcy. That is where we are headed – that is the SIN, Alex – and I am alternately saddened and angered by people who refuse to see it.

No, Walker’s problem isn’t that he’s corrupt. It’s that he’s too honest. We say we want honest politicians, politicians who will take political risks and level with us – but when one does,oh, how he is hated. No, we want pretty lies, pols who promise us more and more and let us believe in the fairy tale that government can provide for all and the gravy train will never end. We deserve everything that’s coming to us – and it will be very ugly.

Elaine, you might wish to be a pro-life Democrat. The Democrats don’t want you. You are not welcome among them. That was made very clear the night Stupak caved.

Bard professor Walter Russell Mead is writing many interesting posts these days about the demise of “Liberalism 4.0″ – the Blue State Social Model operative for much of the 20th century:

Regardless of what happens in Madison this week, it is a hopeless battle. 4.0 liberalism and the Blue Social Model aren’t immoral and they helped many Americans enjoy roughly two generations of unprecedented prosperity — but they are unworkable in the contemporary world. States that don’t make the kind of changes that Wisconsin seeks will face the problems that loyally blue Illinois does now: staggering pension bills that undermine the state’s credit and cripple its ability to attract and hold business. An article in the New York Times, that bastion of blue thinking, mocks Illinois’ latest plan to pay its current pension bill with a $3.7 billion bond issue. Note reporters Mary Williams Walsh and Michael Cooper, Illinois “is essentially paying a single year’s bill by adding to its already heavy debt load. That short-term thinking is not unlike Americans taking out home equity loans to pay for cars and vacations before the housing bust.”

However much money the public sector unions fling into the maw of Democratic party politics, the old system is going down. Workers will actually do better in states that act quickly; the longer the day of reckoning is postponed, the higher the bill will be, and the more savage and draconian the cuts will have to become.

I really, honestly don’t understand why this is so darned difficult to comprehend! Isn’t that how it works in your personal life?

I suspect people really don’t believe that the wheels can come off our system, that there really, truly isn’t any money left (unless the Feds start printing it – hello, hyper-inflation!) Because hey, we’re America! Just as there were undoubtably Brits 100 years ago who scoffed at the idea that mighty Britain could possibly become a 3rd rate power in the space of a couple of generations and Romans who believed the glorious Empire would last forever.

BTW, Donald, in addition to having interesting insights into contemporary US domestic and military policies, Mead is also a fellow Civil War buff and is commemorating the 150th anniversary of the War by blogging about Civil War events as though they were current events.

“Elaine and Alex, do you really comprehend the magnitude of the fiscal disaster that is headed our way?”

Yes, Donna, I believe I do. I work for the state, and if checks start bouncing, I’m first in line to get bounced! I don’t even think about the allegedly lavish pension I’m supposed to get someday because I presume it won’t be there. No early retirement for me, I’m just going to keep working until I’m too old, sick or dead to stand up.

I’m NOT saying benefits cannot or should not be cut back. I’m NOT saying concessions should not be made. And that includes my own benefits even though I’m NOT union and don’t make all that much money ($35,000 a year, folks, it’s a matter of public record) Nor do I think Walker is being all that “mean” or unreasonable in the financial concessions he has sought.

No, I think the problem is more with conservative pundits and others who have consciously chosen to pursue a strategy of emphasizing the alleged greed of public workers as a class, hoping that this will translate into more GOP votes. All you have to do is read the comments on ANY conservative blog to see what I mean. Sorry if I take that a little too personally, but, I do.

I am simply saying to place the blame for this situation where it really belongs…on the elected officials who overpromised time and time again, and on the private employers who pulled the rug out from under THEIR pensioners, thereby creating the expectation that because private sector workers got screwed out of their retirement, therefore so should public sector workers.

The blame does NOT belong to ordinary people like myself who took public sector jobs — not because they wanted to get rich at public expense, or wanted to spit in the face of the taxpayers, or wanted to sit around and do nothing all day — but because they just wanted to do what seemed best for their own security and that of their families. I suppose you’d all rather I go back to trying to support my family on $9 an hour?

As much as I despise the intimidation tactics and stands of the WI public union crowd, and even as much as I despise most unions and would prefer NEVER to join one, please don’t try to convince me that public employees are ALL some kind of Marie Antoinette-like privileged class… I KNOW that’s not true, and others can certainly see it too, and it will only make everything else conservatives say appear equally ridiculous (including pro-life and pro-marriage stands).

No, all I am saying is to cast the issue a little differently… instead of pitting public and private sector against one another just say we are ALL fellow citizens TOGETHER in the same boat and for the good of ALL we need a fiscally sound and sustainable government that doesn’t make promises it can’t keep. Is that so hard to understand?

Sorry if this sounds like an unhinged rant but if you spent the last two days trying to decipher hundreds of pages of Medicaid regulations until your head was ready to explode from eyestrain, well, maybe you would feel like ranting too.

Thanks, Elaine, for your thoughtful and even-handed analysis. Will it change minds here? Probably not. Would it change minds if posted on Vox Nova? No. But it needs to be said. The Church has many teachings, all of them pro-life: opposition to abortion and respect for the sanctity of marriage are two big ones these days, but upholding the dignity of workers is one as well.

Elaine: My older brother retired from a job as city administrator of a small town after 30+ years in that position. I certainly do not think he was lazy; in fact, he worked many evenings and weekends and I know he was very dedicated to the good of the community. At the same time, he has not yet turned 60. None of his siblings will retire before 60, or, I estimate, before we turn 70. The rest of us work in the healthcare system, and none of us get the gold-plated healthcare coverage he receives. My ex-brother in law retired from teaching at age 55. I am resigned to having to work until I am 70 or older. What I resent – and I am sorry that Alex considers this a sin – is having to work until I am at least 70 because I have to foot the bill, not only for myself, but for people like my ex-brother-in-law who is thoroughly enjoying his retirement.

This is what I deeply and (God help me) bitterly resent – the idea, as expressed on signs and in protests that public union employees are the only middle class people, the only workers who count. What am I, what are the people employed by private industry? Chopped liver? People who exist to support public employees?

I am not rich either, Elaine. I make a bit more than you, but I am single and fending for myself in the world. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment in a “yuppie” neighborhood – and I permitted myself the luxury of having a second bedroom and more space only because I didn’t own a car and could walk to work. Then my job moved to a business center miles away and I suddenly had to get up at 4 am and take 3 buses to get to work. So I bought a car (used) last fall and I am now having trouble salting away extra money in my savings account. Last week, I received word that the hospital system I work for is in terrible trouble financially. They are bringing Deloitte and Toche in within the next couple of weeks and there will be serious cuts. Our department may be outsourced. If our financial situation doesn’t improve, the whole organization will go out of business in 18 months.

So, Elaine, you’re not the only one who feels like ranting. I ask, who will be standing on the street corners waving signs around if my hours are cut, or my job is lost? I am a middle manager in my 50’s. What if I try to go back to my former occupation as a legal assistant? Competing against recent college grads? I have spent nights tossing and turning and asking God to help alleviate my fear and dread.

please don’t try to convince me that public employees are ALL some kind of Marie Antoinette-like privileged class…

When did I say that? And Walker has never said anything of the sort. In fact, he has praised the dedication of public employees – and he’s absurdly called a dictator by the mob in Madison. Yes, certainly some conservatives have If you want to castigate someone for tainting the reputation of public employees, look to the unlovely crowd in Madison (and the people in my own neighborhood) who have signs up comparing him to Hitler. The Wisconsin GOP assemblymen and women have been subjected to death threats and the blogger Ann Althouse has been threatened (for simply recording and posting what the Madison protesters have being saying and doing during the past month). When a local grocery store chain refused to post anti-Walker, pro-union signs in its windows, the doors were superglued shut. I take regular walks along N. Lake Shore Drive – yesterday, I noticed that the 2 signs supporting the GOP candidate for Supreme Court Justice were ripped up and tossed in the bushes. The many signs favoring the Dem candidates were untouched.

Yes, it is wrong to associate such thuggish behavior with public employees as a whole. And yet, I can understand why some conservatives might get confused on that score.

Ron, are you aware of the “rubber rooms” in NY state? They are where teachers accused of sexually abusing their pupils and other serious charges go to spend their days – because they can’t be fired according to union rules. They go there to play cards, chat and watch the soaps – at full pay, with the NY taxpayer footing the bill. Does that fit your concept of “upholding the dignity of workers?”

I am so sick I could scream of the notion that only those in unions are “workers” while the rest of us, apparently, are just cash cows who should shut up and pay our ever escalating taxes – and if we complain or rebel we are uncharitable or rude or greedy. Go ahead, lefties, make the whole country look like Detroit. ‘Cause that is exactly where we’re headed.

In Ron’s head, apparently, only the rich are guilty of greed. If a union employee screams because he or she has to pay *horrors* for a portion of their benes or healthcare, well, that’s not greed or selfishness. Yes, like the Pharisee, we thank God that we are not like those miserable others! We are always on the side of the angels, correct, Ron?

And during the past few weeks, I have noticed that no Walker critic has an answer for this:

May I ask why teachers should not have the right to choose whether or not they belong to a union? Why should they be forced to join a union and have their dues used to fund Democratic causes and candidates they may not personally support themselves? If being in a union is so wonderful, I would think they would be happy to pull out the checkbook themselves instead of the state withholding dues.

Oh, and here’s yet another lovely example of a union leader’s touching concern for “the dignity of workers”:

Lerner (a former SEIU official) said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore–the redistribution of wealth and the return of “$17 trillion” stolen from the middle class by Wall Street–is to “destabilize the country.”

Lerner’s plan is to organize a mass, coordinated “strike” on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments–thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans. This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.

Lerner’s plan starts by attacking JP Morgan Chase in early May, with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike.

Lerner also says explicitly that, although the attack will benefit labor unions, it cannot be seen as being organized by them. It must therefore be run by community organizations.
Lerner was ousted from SEIU last November, reportedly for spending millions of the union’s dollars trying to pursue a plan like the one he details here.

Nevermind, of course, that many millions of average Americans would suffer terribly if the stock market went under. Nevermind that Obama himself blessed the bailout of Wall Street and that Wall Street firms donated heavily to his campaign.

“Dignity of workers,” my big fat foot. What the unions are after is power, raw power, and they could care less than a fig about who suffers as a result.

“What I resent – and I am sorry that Alex considers this a sin – is having to work until I am at least 70 because I have to foot the bill, not only for myself, but for people like my ex-brother-in-law who is thoroughly enjoying his retirement.”

@Donna: So instead of helping everyone retire at 55/65 you would rather pass on your misery? I see this to be the sin of Envy?

This is what I deeply and (God help me) bitterly resent – the idea, as expressed on signs and in protests that public union employees are the only middle class people, the only workers who count. What am I, what are the people employed by private industry? Chopped liver? People who exist to support public employees?

@Donna: I work for a private business as well and get a fair wage. I expect my taxes to go to infrastructure (fire/police, schools, and parks/roads) and happy to pay 28% or more. As well believe if I made more than 3 million that the next dollar should be taxed at 90%.

Alex, you have forgotten to mention the gold-plated benefits and pension plans, which is something the overwhelming majority of Americans do not get.

@Donna My dad worked for ford his whole life worked nights to put me through school and put me in a very middle/high middle class neighborhood so I can do what he could not, go to school. My dad worked for 35 years and retired with that “gold-plated” benefits because he had a union. My dad is a very humble person that never asked for anything and was happy he had a job. If it was not for the union he would not be fairly compensated. Because of the years of work, blood and sweat I was able to go to school in order to work and be productive. I don’t have a union, but because of my father I able to stand on my two feet and quit when I feel taken advantaged unlike my dad, but he had the union to help him negotiate fair wage. I left my previous job because of a 30% cut in wage and was out of work for a year. Mind you I have a house that is 90k and 2 cars. Today I found a job that I am making 40% more all because of my dad providing for my future. Now my dad is retired with a “gold-plated” pension with a successful son that has not forgotten were he came from like many others have. If that is so bad for a person to retire at 55 you try doing some hard manual labor for sometime. You know what is sad is I make what may dad made before he retired… and i feel that I nor many people posting on this blog have never work as hard has him and many others. Unions are needed if you don’t think so I am afraid that you don’t believe in democracy since i do see unions as mini-versions of our gov’t.

Collective bargaining is a privilege, not a “right” Moses came down the mountain with. Federal employees don’t have it, teachers in right-to-work states don’t have it. May I ask why teachers should not have the right to choose whether or not they belong to a union? Why should they be forced to join a union and have their dues used to fund Democratic causes and candidates they may not personally support themselves? If being in a union is so wonderful, I would think they would be happy to pull out the checkbook themselves instead of the state withholding dues. (And why on earth is the state in the business of withholding union dues anyway.)

Collective bargaining is a privilege, not a “right”<— with this logic lets just say that voting is also privilege not a "right". What is wrong with Collective bargaining? We do this all the time passively and actively in democracy… unless you want a dictatorship be my guess. I would like you to explain to me why this is not a right? How do you define what is a human right versus a privilege.

"It is the middle class majority comprised of non-public employees who are footing the bill so a small minority of their peers can enjoy perks and privileges the rest of us do not get. Walker’s reforms are actually very modest, and yet the unionists are screaming like scalded cats. The system as presently scheduled prevents any true reform of our educational system, because poor teachers with seniority cannot be fired. "

@Donna: Have you every volunteered to work as a substitute teacher ? Many of these Sr. "teachers" that should be fired my guess are less than 10% so you would get rid of collective bargaining for these rotten teachers. Even though most of the issue is not the rotten teacher but the rotten parents.

Here is a few questions for you what is your take on the elected offical's salaries? Do you think Citizen United Decision is the correct direction for our country? Would you rather take from people that are working hard then those who will always be well off?

Donna, I am very sorry to hear that your job is in jeopardy. Involuntary unemployment is something both my husband and I have experienced, and the only thing I can say about it is, it sucks. In fact he’s unemployed now and no longer getting unemployment benefits, so my salary is all the three of us have.

I am quite aware of the death threats and intimidation tactics going on in Wisconsin. I discovered Ann Althouse’s blog about a month ago and have been reading it every day since so I know about everything she and her husband, Larry Meade, have been reporting. I chafe constantly at how conservatives, even on their best behavior, are always painted in the media as the intolerant thugs while leftists get away with all sorts of “incivility” and worse.

Yes, public employee unions are doing their best to make all public employees look bad and incite class warfare — that’s obvious. But what may NOT be as obvious to people like us is that there are some (certainly not all) conservatives doing the same thing. You can find them on any conservative blog, or any newspaper website. People who say ALL unions, even in the private sector, must be abolished; people who say ALL public employees are mere parasites who produce nothing of value and whose very existence is a form of theft; people who say that all public employees only have their jobs because they are losers incapable of making it in the “real world,” etc.

I don’t think public employees are the only “real” middle class people or that their jobs are the only ones that matter. I do not want to see ANYONE lose their job if it can be avoided. And should I ever lose my job (it could happen if our agency budget gets cut severely enough) I don’t expect anyone to go out on a street corner and protest. All I am saying is that I don’t like class warfare, no matter who instigates it.

Donna: So instead of helping everyone retire at 55/65 you would rather pass on your misery? I see this to be the sin of Envy?

Alex, you really, really don’t get it. “Helping everyone retire at 55/65?” How, given the demographics of this country and the financial straits we are in, is such a thing possible? Again, do you even begin to comprehend the hole that we are in? It’s like saying you’re in favor of the tooth fairy. No, Walker is asking the public union employees to give up a small fraction of what they currently have for the greater good. By doing that he avoids layoffs. But the teacher’s union has shown that they would accept thousands of layoffs rather than making concessions. You, Alex, are insisting that other people make the sacrifices while absolving the teachers from making any. Guess what? We will all have to make sacrifices and I don’t understand why teachers should be exempt.

Your view of unions is influenced by your father’s experience. I don’t doubt he worked hard, but I wouldn’t confuse reverence for a parent with reverence for an institution. There was a place and time for unions – but that time is over and done, as Prof. Mead explains so well in his articles. My sister worked in the medical department of a GE plant up until 5 years ago. She was in one of the few non-unionized departments there. The plant is now shuttered, in large part because the UAW would not make even the smallest concessions. Michigan is a basket case economy for the same reason.

What is wrong with Collective bargaining?

Can I ask you, what about those of us workers who do not have collective bargaining, but have negotiated on our own for raises? What about all the German and Japanese car company plants located in the South -plants which are doing just fine without collective bargaining? Are those workers slaves? Do they live in a dictatorship? What about people who live in Right to Work states? Are they peons? Four families of my acquaintance have moved to Texas or Tennessee over the past year. Silly fools, leaving the union paradise that is the upper Midwest for the benighted South – which is where all the job creation happens to be these days. What would you do to stop such flights of labor, Alex? Forbid corporations from moving to right to work states? Good luck with that.

You absolve yourself of the sin of envy, Alex, but you have no problem with the idea of taking from those more well-off than you. My guess is that you blame the rich and those evil corporations for all the ills of the world. Oh, but you’re not envious. Well, take a look around the room you’re sitting in and name me one item you own that was NOT made by a corporation. Like I noted earlier, you could take every single dime away from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and that would not solve our financial crisis. Unfortunately, we are not only killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, we are making omelets from the eggs.

what is your take on the elected offical’s salaries?
It’s my understanding that Walker has agreed to the same cuts he has stipulated for other public employees.

Do you think Citizen United Decision is the correct direction for our country?

And may I ask you -again- why you think that forcing people to be in unions and pay union dues is democratic?

I could make this post much longer, but I must get ready for work. I leave with the words of former SEIU exec Lerner, who sounds like he has exactly the same understanding of “democracy” as you do, Alex:

Lerner (a former SEIU official) said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore–the redistribution of wealth and the return of “$17 trillion” stolen from the middle class by Wall Street–is to “destabilize the country.”

Lerner’s plan is to organize a mass, coordinated “strike” on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments–thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans. This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.

Yeah, let’s bring down Wall Street and the banks! Or, as Alex would put it, let’s take from the rich! It’s not sinful to do that!

Oh, and one last thing: most Wisconsin teachers stayed in their classrooms and did not run over to Madison to throw a giant hissy fit. Those who did – and took students with them – certainly taught those kids some valuable lessons. Such as: it’s fine to lie about being sick, the results of the last election can be ignored if you don’t like the results, it’s also OK for legislators to run off to another state to avoid taking a vote, it’s wonderful to spew hatred of Walker and the GOP and call them Nazis and fascists, it’s terrific to bully and threaten businesses into publicly supporting you, as the unions are doing, it’s great to turn a beautiful capitol building into a dump and to refuse to leave, it’s me-me-me and mine-mine-mine all the way and sacrifices are for others to make.

Elaine: I don’t think we are that far apart. No, I do not agree with blanket condemnations of all teachers or all public employees. I think that when conservatives are relentlessly demonized by the media and progressives as selfish and uncaring there is a temptation to demonize the other side in turn. That is not helpful, but I don’t think it is coming from Walker or the GOP legislators.

I think it is regretable that Walker elected to make an attack on working families his first priority, ahead of defense of the unborn. The public revolt against his anti-worker actions will likely lead to a loss of his Senate majority after the recall and maybe his own recall next year*, stalling any pro-life initiative he might someday get around to. He has thrown away a chance to protect the unborn.

* Something I doubted could be pulled off until the news reports that he gave a government job to the mistress of one of the married Republican senators who did his bidding — and a government job with at a 30% raise over the civil servant who held the job before, all while the Governor claims the state is “broke”

Criticizing a politician for prioritizing financial matters over anti-abortion measures can and often is a valid criticism. However, if it’s a financial crisis (which I accept is the case in WI, though others may argue otherwise), it would seem prudent to address that first because ultimately matters of life are involved.

However, I find Kurt’s remarks to be laughable and the type of argument that if I were tempted to make would likely cause me to change my opinion – or at least reconsider my position. By the standard he is holding Walker to, Kurt would not – could not – possibly have supported Obama. It was well known that Obama would not only prioritize pro-life initatives but that he prioritize the expansion of abortion. The only thing remotely pro-life Obama has done was delay his planned overturning of the Mexico City Policy to the third day of his presidency.

Kurt, I’ve enjoyed reading your arguments in these threads and have gained insight due to them, but I’m calling you out on your last comment. It’s those types of tortured arguments that can cause one to lose any bit of credibility. Eventually people won’t even give you the courtesy to give consideration to your substantiative and valid arguments.

I know I am not going to change your mind, but you have no idea how alienating and offensive that is to large segments of the public, particularly blue collar voters. Labor, like business, environmentalists, defense contracters, the NRA, Realtors, and Immigrant rights organizations make their endorsements on a narrow range of issues that directly concern them, abortion not being one of them. Yet you single out labor because you’ve done some calculation. Calling someone a supporter of abortion is a serious charge. You cheapen it and in doing so you cheapen the Pro-Life movement. These unions are not supporting abortion. They have made objective evaluations of candidates based on their positions on labor issues. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), maybe the most pro-life member of Congress gets labor support every election because of his positive voting record on labor issues.

Your goal is to taint your secular political opponents with abortion. Sadly, because so many have done that, more pro-life voters have simply stopped listening to the Pro-Life movement than have been one over. But, of course, that is alright with you as well, because the last thing many conservatives want is a bunch of “working class slobs” as pro-life leaders.

Put another way, BS on fine bread is still a BS sandwhich. You can use polemics to try to make your point, but the fact is that unions (especially teachers unions) support abortion. In fact many “working class slobs” are trying to get their dues back to stop this. But don’t let facts get in the way of your speeches:

Oh, and Alex, your complete and utter lack of compassion for any worker who is not union is noted. You honor your dad. That is -honestly and truly- commendable. You think everyone else should sacrifice to keep your dad in clover – well, that is not so commendable. If your dad did not have the foresight to save for his retirement, as my steel factory dad, who squirreled away every cent he could, did, well then that is your job and your responsibility, Alex. You also blur the lines between private and public unions. Please don’t tell me that teachers hauling home lesson plans compromises hard physical labor. Most of us do not get June, July and August off.

When it comes to retirement benefits the real problem isn’t unions, taxation, or over- or under-paid public employment.

The real problem is that Baby Boomers and later generations are living longer and “larger” (i.e. at a higher standard of living) than their retirement benefits were designed to last, and that they didn’t have enough children to replace themselves in the workforce.

Social Security was created at a time when life expectancy was below age 70 — meaning most people who retired at 65 would only draw benefits for about 5-10 years — and there were at least 5 or 6 (or more) younger adults in the workforce for every retiree.

Now that life expectancy is creeping up on 80+, many retirees live 20-25 years after retirement, and there are only 2-3 younger workers for every retiree, it doesn’t take an economic scientist to see there are going to be big problems sustaining the system. The best short term solution IMO would be to raise the retirement age to 70 or even farther, to reflect increased life expectancy.

Put another waym the candidates endorsed by the RTL Committee are almost all anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-consumer protection and pro-gun. Therefore the Por-Life Movement is anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-consumer and pro-gun.

Put another waym the candidates endorsed by the RTL Committee are almost all anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-consumer protection and pro-gun. Therefore the Por-Life Movement is anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-consumer and pro-gun.

Really? Anti-worker? I suspect “pro-worker” in your mind is strictly defined by whether or not they subservient to the union machine or not. Anti-environment? As little respect as I have for politicians of any stripe I don’t recall having ever considered one anti-environment. Again, I think you’re making leaps here and attributing something to another just because they don’t accept your narrowly defined (and possibly quite imprudent or incorrect policy preferences). Anti-consumer protection? Here too I think what’s at issues is prudential judgment and evaluation of the pros and cons of various policies. Pro-gun, not sure that’s a criteria of RTL, it may just be that most people who support the dignity of life at the earliest stages of life also support throughout life. I see nothing contradictory to life and the dignity of man in upholding the right of someone to possess a firearm. Besides, aren’t firearms owners primarily workers and consumers, many of whom have a sincere appreciation of the environment and wildlife? Perhaps we could use “pro-gun” to be a catch-all position for all that is good and just.

Was just being a little sarcastic in as respectful of a way as i could. I don’t know the mind of RTL, but I find it hard to believe that they select candidates to support based on the criteria you mention. I first and foremost reject your your characterizations regarding anti-worker, environment, etc. Second, I’m willing to acknowledge that people who who place a high value on the right to life and the dignity of the human person are likely to carry those convictions to other matters of public policy, it just so happens you may not view those as desirable things.

I don’t know the mind of RTL, but I find it hard to believe that they select candidates to support based on the criteria you mention.

Yes, well Phillip’s standard is the criteria used in making endorsement is not a factor. If the AFL-CIO, the American Medical Association or the National Association of Realtors uses criteria of issues particular to their organizations, so what. Nevertheless, that does not save them from Phillip’s judgment of being pro-abortion. So, the same with RTL. It’s not the criteria they use, but someone’s judgment that too many of their candidates are pro-gun. It really is quite silly and certainly cheapens the pro-life cause by flinging accusations around.

The American Medical Association supports abortion. Therefore it is not pro-life. The National Association of Realtors has no opinion that can be found. The AFL-CIO at this point is agnostic on abortion but has clearly steared near supporting it:

I make no apologies for democracy. If that is something you find offensive, I hear a colonel in Libya is looking for guys to help him out.

The AFL-CIO is a democracy. Some portion of the membership proposed a resolution and it was voted down. We who believe in democracy have no problem with this. It is only the totalitarian mindset that objects.

You are squirming back and forth. On the one hand you call the AFL-CIO pro-abortion not because the group has adopted any such policy or uses abortion as a criteria in its political endorsements, but because you find that too many of its endorsed candidates are pro-abortion, even if it be by accident rather than design. The same standard applied to the RTL Committee would say that RTL is pro-this or anti-that not based on their positions or endorsement criteria but is too many of their endorsed candidates take those positions.

Thank God that outside gubmint unions using taxpayer funded salaries to elect politicians to raise their taxpayer funded salaries, fewer than 20% of employees are trapped in unions that are intent on destroying the evil, unjust private sector thus terminating their employment opportunities.

Kurt, Are al Qaeda and sharia law (i.e., the Libyan rebels) democracy????

“Meeting behind closed doors last month, the California Labor Federation — which represents more than 2.1 million workers belonging to more than 1,100 affiliated unions — voted to oppose Proposition 85, a November ballot initiative that would require doctors to notify parents before performing abortions on minors. In a policy statement, the labor federation also urged the national AFL-CIO “to reconsider its position of neutrality on the issue.”

Was just going with your example of the AFl-CIO and abortion. But as far as CST is concerned, the AFL-CIO is radically opposed to marriage:

“As the AFL-CIO Executive Council gathers in Miami this week, hearing addresses from Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis dealing with the economic crisis and its impact on workers across the country, the Executive Council has spoken up again for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers by passing a resolution, in unanimity, calling on the California Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8. ”

Of course California and national unions spent huge amounts to defeat the protection of marriage (contra their members’ wishes.) And of course promoting gay marriage has nothing to do with worker protections. At least not according to CST.

Great news. Next weekend, my parish church is inserting in the bulletin a letter in support of an AFL-CIO action for parishioners to sign an either mail to the offending employer or leave with the ushers so the parish can deliver them. I’m can’t wait for the boss of this company to find out his antics have been exposed to every Mass goer in the parish. I wish I could be there to watch as he wets himself in his $5,000 imported Italian suit.

Wow, look at some of the unions that sought to overturn marriage in California:

California Labor Federation
National Federation of Federal Employees
Screen Actors Guild
UNITE HERE!
Alameda Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Fresno-Madera-Tulare-Kings Counties Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO
Sacramento Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO
San Mateo County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO
San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO
South Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO
California Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
California Faculty Association
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, District Council 57, AFL-CIO
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 2019, AFL-CIO
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 2428, AFL-CIO
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 3299, AFL-CIO
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 3916, AFL-CIO
American Federation of Teachers, Local 6119,Compton Council of Classified Employees
American Federation of Teachers, Local 6157, San Jose/Evergreen Faculty Association, AFL-CIO
El Camino College Federation of Teachers, Local 1388, California Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
United Educators of San Francisco, AFT/CFT Local 61, AFL-CIO, NEA/CTA
University Council-American Federation of Teachers
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, Council 97
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, Council 99
Communications Workers of America District 9, AFL-CIO
Communications Workers of America, Local 9000, AFL-CIO
Communications Workers of America, Local 9503, AFL-CIO
Communications Workers of America, Local 9505, AFL-CIO
Communications Workers of America, Local 9421, AFL-CIO
Communications Workers of America, Local 9575, AFL-CIO
District Council of Ironworkers of the State of California and Vicinity
Jewish Labor Committee Western Region
Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund
National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1450
Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ Local 300, AFL-CIO
Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ Local 400, AFL-CIO
Pride at Work, AFL-CIO
SEIU California State Council
SEIU Local 521
SEIU Local 721
SEIU Local 1000
SEIU Local 1021
SEIU Local 1877
SEIU United Healthcare Workers West
Teamsters Joint Council 7, International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Teamsters Local 853, International Brotherhood of Teamsters
United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 5
UNITE HERE Local 19
United Steelworkers, Local 5, Martinez, Ca.
University Professional and Technical Employees, Communications Workers of America, Local 9119, AFL-CIO

@ Donna : My sister worked in the medical department of a GE plant up until 5 years ago. She was in one of the few non-unionized departments there. The plant is now shuttered, in large part because the UAW would not make even the smallest concessions. Michigan is a basket case economy for the same reason.

Response: I am sorry to hear that, No institution is perfect I never said that there should not be some more regulations to unions and that is something I would like to see. Just as background the Union worked with the state and did all that was asked to save jobs and took cuts. My question if they did everything that was needed why did they still go after the Collective bargaining when infact they already gave provisions to cut wages to save jobs?

Can I ask you, what about those of us workers who do not have collective bargaining, but have negotiated on our own for raises? What about all the German and Japanese car company plants located in the South -plants which are doing just fine without collective bargaining? Are those workers slaves? Do they live in a dictatorship? What about people who live in Right to Work states? Are they peons? Four families of my acquaintance have moved to Texas or Tennessee over the past year. Silly fools, leaving the union paradise that is the upper Midwest for the benighted South – which is where all the job creation happens to be these days. What would you do to stop such flights of labor, Alex? Forbid corporations from moving to right to work states? Good luck with that.

Response: If i recall I said “I don’t have a union, but because of my father I able to stand on my two feet and quit when I feel taken advantaged unlike my dad, but he had the union to help him negotiate fair wage. I left my previous job because of a 30% cut in wage and was out of work for a year. Mind you I have a house that is 90k and 2 cars [and yea I saved over 2 years of pay for working 18 months at this position]. Today I found a job that I am making 40% more all because of my dad providing for my future.” So Yes I never said people would not speak up so please read what i said I said that some people like my dad will never ask for more even though he works 2x harder then the next guy probably because he like about 20% of the population that are intraverts. There will always be a need for unions and non-union take an advance economics course. Unions are needed if you don’t think so let all the unions fold and you will see a bigger decline in wages. If you look in the last 30 years the middle class wages have fallen. If you read any economic study on class disparity you will find this to be true.

what is your take on the elected offical’s salaries?
It’s my understanding that Walker has agreed to the same cuts he has stipulated for other public employees.

Response: Please show me the evidence I have yet to see any political person take a cut? Unless you mean only a salary cut my suggestion is look at the overall package my guess would something got cut but something got added … this is true with any executive or politian don’t be a fool

And may I ask you -again- why you think that forcing people to be in unions and pay union dues is democratic?

Response: Is paying taxes also democratic? With any institution you have a choice if you do not want to be in the teacher’s union QUIT and go to a charter/private school. That is democracy you can choice to stay or leave. If you want to continue down this logic lets see if i stop paying ~60% of my taxes because i don’t want to give it to the military? I like to see how far that get me. Just as many people in the past had said if you don’t like it leave the country…. everyone has choices,right?

As far, Lerner. I think you missed my whole point because you cannot see past black or white. Lerner for all intensive porpoises is a economic terrorist so do i agree with him, no i do not. I understand economics a little better than you since I do have a 4 yr degree in it from one of the top 10 schools for economics. I never said to bring down wall street ( i do beleave we need more regulation, oversight, and enforcement if you don’t think so please enlighten me how to stop people like Bernard L. Madoff )

Oh, and one last thing: most Wisconsin teachers stayed in their classrooms and did not run over to Madison to throw a giant hissy fit. […] it’s me-me-me and mine-mine-mine all the way and sacrifices are for others to make.

I also didn’t saw that I supported things like this. again goes back that unions also should have some regulations. If you look at healthcare many of the staff cannot strike and do things like this because it is illegal and damages the public well being. (Yet they still have Collective bargaining??) AGAIN YOU AND MOST DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLIANS THE ISSUE IS NOT BLACK AND WHITE!! We need regulation on both sides in economics we call it constraints. By removing unions you are removing a constraint wich will be bad for all workers.

“Oh, and Alex, your complete and utter lack of compassion for any worker who is not union is noted.”
R: Where did that come out?

Please don’t tell me that teachers hauling home lesson plans compromises hard physical labor. Most of us do not get June, July and August off.

@Donna: About having lack of compassion… I think as most people are only focusing on one aspect of the benefits of the job. Yet do not understand its hardships. I will not say for instance my future wife’s job is easy because she only works 15 days a week. Would you be hurt to know she makes over 250k? Please stop me if you think that is too much for an Doctor that works in the Emergency Room? If you count the amount of time off she has it is a little over 6 mouths not including her 160hrs of vacation? Is that fair? She doesn’t work a incredably difficult physical job like my dad did does she? Again like most people in america we all just look at life as binary, black and white and yet we live in a very gray world.

@Elaine: Actually SS was never really ment to be a retirement account as people think it is today. It was for disability and unemployment insurance like whole life insurance that at the end of the term it pays out what you put into it. I really think our elected officials need to said that, but they don’t since the democrats want people to think it was for retirement and the republicans want to just get rid of it completely. I believe it is ok and should only pay what you put into it … that would solve this issue. It would also push people into saving more for retirment and not count on SS as a retirement acount and make this country strong but that will not happen. You will see that this issue will be dragged for another decade because it is political suicide for republicans nor democrats to say the truth. That is the true problem not extentending the insurence benefits it will only prolong the problem. NOT A RETIREMENT ACCOUNT

Alex: “There will always be a need for unions?” Really? Then why has union membership in the private sector been shrinking since the 1970’s? Again, I refer to you to Detroit – the fact that it is dying a long slow death has much to do with the power of the UAW.

And again, you keep conflating public and private unions. FDR himself, who was certainly not against private unions, opposed the creation of public ones. In major cities,you have the public union sitting down to “negotiate ” with elected (Democratic) officals who have received campaign contributions from those same unions. Of course, over the years, the Democrats have lavishly rewarded the people who are buttering their bread.The people who are not represented at that table? The taxpayers who have to fork over the money to pay for things like Viagra for Milwaukee schoolteachers and plastic surgery for NJ ones.

I must get ready for Mass, but Alex and Kurt – you are not progressives. You are reactionaries, bitterly clinging to the status quo and unwilling to acknowledge the world has changed since your father’s day. Well, it doesn’t matter what you or I think or feel about any of it. The fact is that we are out of money and you can scream and cry and make CEO’s wet their expensive suits, but you can’t change the economic facts.

I expect those ugly scenes will occur here in the States as well as milllions of addicts get weaned from their government-supplied crack in the upcoming years. The social welfare model is coming to an end throughout the Western world due to demographics, and it doesn’t matter one whit how you feel about it.

Phillip, you make the mistake of thinking Kurt gives one hoot about aborted babies. Millions of piles of them count for nothing compared to the glorious, vengeful delight Kurt feels at the thought of making a CEO wet his pants – that’s social justice, you see!

And from what I understand, neither was the 401(k) plan… which was invented in the 1980s as a means for wealthy people to supplement OTHER sources of retirement income, including pensions. However, private companies latched onto it as a means of getting out from under their pension obligations and today it is being pushed as the “ideal” solution to unsustainable public pensions.

I’m not disputing the fact that 1) many public pensions in their current form are unsustainable, or that 2) something needs to be done to freeze or scale back these obligations (regardless of who is ultimately to blame) before they consume entire state/local government budgets.

What I AM disputing is the notion that simply converting all public employees to a 401(k) type defined contribution plan will magically solve these fiscal problems overnight, or guarantee retirement security as long as people do all the “right” things and faithfully make their contributions. There are additional costs that states would incur on the front end from instituting defined contribution plans, not the least of which is the fact that they would have to start paying Social Security for many employees who do not currently get it.

What the situation really requires is thinking out of the box — looking for arrangements that blend greater employee responsibility with a degree of “backup” from the public entity, and (it goes without saying) fiscal responsibility on the part of all parties — no making promises that can’t be kept just to win votes!

In fact, Nebraska, which converted employee pensions to 401(k) defined contribution back in the 1990s, recently decided to institute a “hybrid” plan that combines employee contributions with a guaranteed rate of return and professional fund management. West Virginia has also gone BACK to a defined benefit plan for some of its employees:

@Donna: I think you need to do some history and background on Unions. Unions have been attacked since they were created it started stagnating since the creation of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. Union Membership actually started declining in that 1980s actually around 1983 if i recall. Unions have been dropping because of Globilization mostly (NAFTA/CAFTA) and state laws since the 1970 had either made “right-to-work” statutes or forbid it outright.
As for as those ugly scenes we saw it in egypt and now england, it will get much worse in england and here in the US. I expect almost the brink of anarchy here in the states because of laws like NAFTA and a slew of other mandates. If you consider that we are in a global market place we have not adapted to creating laws and import/export taffifs to stop the loss of jobs being outsourced in a manner that would provide positive externailities both nationally and internationally. We are behind in that aspect We as I see back in the 1900 in regards to labor. We have now to think how to make global labor inititives that is fair nationally and able to provide a balance fairness internationally. FOr example many jobs today are service jobs and we should not outsource those, but we have lost our manufacturing in this country and those jobs pay much lower than service jobs because of the leave of skill it takes.

@Elaine: Well said, I have to agree in many parts especialAnd from what I understand, neither was ”
which was invented in the 1980s as a means for wealthy people to supplement OTHER sources of retirement income, including pensions. However, private companies latched onto it as a means of getting out from under their pension obligations and today it is being pushed as the “ideal” solution to unsustainable public pensions.” Yea I have to agree with that statement. But SS is not the answer the answer is more regulation to these businesses and to make sure they honor there obligations.

”
What I AM disputing is the notion that simply converting all public employees to a 401(k) type defined contribution plan will magically solve these fiscal problems overnight, or guarantee retirement security as long as people do all the “right” things and faithfully make their contributions. There are additional costs that states would incur on the front end from instituting defined contribution plans, not the least of which is the fact that they would have to start paying Social Security for many employees who do not currently get it.
”
I agree this should had never happen i feel if most people understood VALUE Nuetral economics most of these political issues that cloud true capitialism. We need to get rid of a lot of things that do not give you subsidies anything that do not provide society with something back such as corn, oil, etc… any way that is a different conversation, but yes i do agree with this point but many of these true solutions will not happen until people on both sides start waking up and get out of the ideological positions that only seperate everyone and start agreeing on somethings to start working on solutions or we will very well see riots in the street like egypt and england. I for one am very scared to see this happen because it will be way less “peaceful” then england and egypt.

Alex: I don’t understand why you think I am “hurt” at the thought of your physician wife making more than I do. You are mistaking me for Kurt J I work with doctors every day and am well aware of the rigors of their training and the hefty responsibilities they have to match the hefty paychecks.

I know the history of American unions, thank you. While they were a necessary corrective at one time, their history is far from being spotless. Remember “On the Waterfront?” Racketeering, corruption, Mafia ties, Hoffa, violence against “scabs” – that is also a part of union history.

I don’t know how we can put the globalization genie back in the bottle. The heyday of unions and the golden age of American manufacturing were largely due to an unrepeatable moment in history – at the end of WWII, we were the only game in town, because we were just about the only industrial power that hadn’t been bombed to smithereens during the war. Globalization was bound to happen as countries like Germany and Japan rebuilt and then as Third World countries began their own Industrial and Technological revolutions.

Elaine: Again I strongly recommend the writings of Walter Russell Mead over at the American Interest. (Mead, BTW, is a life-long Democrat.) Mead writes brilliantly of the present day collapse of “Liberalism 4.0” as he calls it, but he also offers some “out of the box” thinking re: what comes next. I read him to cheer myself up. I admit I am not as optimistic as he is that Americans can creatively think their way out of the bind we are in. Living in Wisconsin and looking around me, I fear the old American “can-do” spirit is dead. Everyone – not just union people, or public employees, or welfare recipients – is stuck in a mode of peevish entitlement, or what the Brits call “I want mine, Jack.” Increasingly, I feel that we are just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Alex wrote:

“Start working on solutions or we will very well see riots in the street like egypt and england. I for one am very scared to see this happen because it will be way less “peaceful” then england and egypt.”

Oh and BTW, Elaine and Donald, I wish to apologize for a certain feeling of superiority I had over my Illinois and Minnesota neighbors in November, when we voted for change (or so I thought) and the good folks in your state voted for the same-old same-old.

Well, it feels like Chicagoland here. You have no idea how nasty and ugly the atmosphere is in these parts. And now the Church has been dragged into it, with the charge being made that Supreme Court Justice Prosser refused to prosecute the Church in a sexual abuse case dating back in the 1970’s. (Nevermind that the victim in the sexual abuse case has released a statement defending Prosser and has denounced Prosser’s opponent for making political hay of this. The Dems are throwing mud left and right and assuming some of it will stick. So now all the anti-Catholics have predictably come out of the woodwork to charge Prosser with being “in cahoots with the Vatican” and similar nonsense. ) One of the most depressing things about this neverending feud in Badger Country is that my belief in the friendliness and guilelessness of Midwesterners has deserted me. It was my boast when I lived in DC that I came from a state of warm, friendly, and polite people. Well, now the mask has come off and Wisconsinites are showing the snarl under the smile. And I cannot say how ashamed that makes me.

Political battles over very important issues are rarely pleasant Donna, and Governor Walker has begun a fight that is all-important, not only in Wisconsin but around the nation. We either get control of government spending, or we can say farewell to prosperity as a people.

Gov. Cuomo is going to fight unions. Not GOP gov. Walker, but NY Gov Cuomo, son of a Democrat icon.

As Prof. Mead has noted, it isn’t the GOP governors the unions should be frightened of, but Democratic governors like Cuomo who have read the writing on the wall and are acting accordingly. 2 +2 will never = 5, no matter how earnestly you wish it to be so, Kurt.

Kurt – you are not progressives. You are reactionaries, bitterly clinging to the status quo and unwilling to acknowledge the world has changed since your father’s day.

That not what my Church teaechs me. Catholic Social Teaching is quite clear that labor unions are not something extraordinary to be utilized only during a (hopefully brief) period extraordinary situation, but they are normative and “indispensible” to a just society.

BTW Donna, any update on that nice government job Walker gave Senator Hopper’s mistress?

And Kurt, I stand by my statement that you are a reactionary,fighting with all your might for the status quo. Well, the social welfare state will be dead within 10-15 years, because there is no money for it.

Kurt, please don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back because you support such a highly moral system. ‘Cause it really isn’t:

Because the institutions of the welfare state are intended to be partial substitutes for traditional familial, social, religious, and cultural mediating institutions, their growth weakens the very structures that might balance our society’s restless quest for prosperity and novelty and might replenish our supply of idealism.

This is the second major failing of this vision of society — a kind of spiritual failing. Under the rules of the modern welfare state, we give up a portion of the capacity to provide for ourselves and in return are freed from a portion of the obligation to discipline ourselves. Increasing economic collectivism enables increasing moral individualism, both of which leave us with less responsibility, and therefore with less grounded and meaningful lives.

Moreover, because all citizens — not only the poor — become recipients of benefits, people in the middle class come to approach their government as claimants, not as self-governing citizens, and to approach the social safety net not as a great majority of givers eager to make sure that a small minority of recipients are spared from devastating poverty but as a mass of dependents demanding what they are owed. It is hard to imagine an ethic better suited to undermining the moral basis of a free society.

Meanwhile, because public programs can never truly take the place of traditional mediating institutions, the people who most depend upon the welfare state are relegated to a moral vacuum. Rather than strengthening social bonds, the rise of the welfare state has precipitated the collapse of family and community, especially among the poor.

This was not the purpose of our welfare state, but it is among its many unintended consequences. As Irving Kristol put it in 1997, “The secular, social-democratic founders of the modern welfare state really did think that in the kind of welfare state we have today people would be more public-spirited, more high-minded, more humanly ‘fulfilled.'” They were wrong about this for the same reason that their expectations of the administrative state have proven misguided — because their understanding of the human person was far too shallow and emaciated. They assumed that moral problems were functions of material problems, so that addressing the latter would resolve the former, when the opposite is more often the case. And guided by the ethic of the modern left, they imagined that traditional institutions like the family, the church, and the local association were sources of division, prejudice, and backwardness, rather than essential pillars of our moral lives. The failure of the social-democratic vision is, in this sense, fundamentally a failure of moral wisdom.

That’s just a small snippet from an excellent article by Yuval Levin on the death of the social welfare state. Man up, Kurt. It’s coming.

Kurt, do you belong to the church of Fr. Phelge (or whatever that leftist goofball’s name is) in Chicago?

Nope. But the Cardinal-Archbishop of whom my pastoral care is entrusted is aware of my public policy views and holds me in full communion with the Catholic Church.

You certainly have a problem with your hatred and envy of the rich. It’s not good for your soul, Kurt.

Your suggestion that every dime that every rich person is currently in possession of is justly there likely endangers your soul. But no man has any right to profit from unjust acts.

Donna, can you mention any social welfare initiative that the Catholic Bishops in this country have ever objected to? Any?

I’m not suggesting you are a bad Catholic to wholy and totally reject the public policy positions of the Catholic bishops, but have they ever sided with your views on a social welfare question? Social Security? Medicare? Disability Insurance? AFDC? Food Stamps? Medicaid? LIHEAP? Head Start? Pell Grants? Community Service Block Grants? Section 202 Housing? SSI? Unemployment Insurance? Title XX Social Service Block Grants? Pension Insurance?

“I’m not suggesting you are a bad Catholic to wholy and totally reject the public policy positions of the Catholic bishops, but have they ever sided with your views on a social welfare question? Social Security? Medicare? Disability Insurance? AFDC? Food Stamps? Medicaid? LIHEAP? Head Start? Pell Grants? Community Service Block Grants? Section 202 Housing? SSI? Unemployment Insurance? Title XX Social Service Block Grants? Pension Insurance?”

Wow, from reading Vox Nova I thought there was no social welfare net, nor the redistribution of income to provide such a net, in America. But I miss where Church teaching specifically says these programs (as opposed to others) are necessarily the fulfillment of CST.

Also, given the current recession, its not clear that setting limits on them is contrary to CST. I do look forward to your linking the definitive teaching on this however.

But I miss where Church teaching specifically says these programs (as opposed to others) are necessarily the fulfillment of CST.

Phillip, I would fully respect your prayerful discernment if you have determined these programs do not meet your understanding of the Church’s Social Teachings. I am just asking if the Episcopate has ever concurred with your views.

“I am just asking if the Episcopate has ever concurred with your views.”

Yes, where the Magisterium teaches that the principles of CST are the guides to action. That these principles are not concrete proposals. That the Church does not, and will not, teach specific proposals for the application of CST. That this application to world problems properly belongs to the laity. That the laity may differ on the applications of these principles in good conscience and that these differences may represent legitimate applications of CST.

That’s where the episcopate agrees with me on the noted social programs.

That these principles are not concrete proposals. That the Church does not, and will not, teach specific proposals for the application of CST. That this application to world problems properly belongs to the laity. That the laity may differ on the applications of these principles in good conscience and that these differences may represent legitimate applications of CST.

Phillip, I have no disagreement with you that when it comes times to take Catholic principles and translate them to particular pieces of legislation or policy proposals, the laity have great liberty to determine what is proper and prudent. I try to not fall into any inconsistency on that be it a matter where the Church appears to take a position that is suppotrted by the secular right or the secular left.

Yet the Episcopate frequently sends letters to Congress urging a particular stand on this piece of legislation or that piece of legislation on a wide variety of policy matters. I don’t consider these letters to be Church teachings to which all faithful Catholics are bound to.

But with that in mind, and again respecting your right in good faith to disagree with the Episcopate’s stance in these letters, I take it we have no disagreement that on social welfare questions, the American Episcopate has never* sent a letter whcih supports the conservative position on such a question.

* To amend and modify my own statement, the American Episcopate in the 1920s did oppose legislation restricting child labor as an interference in the natural law right of parents to raise their children. The Church has since retracted and apologied for that action.

“Yet the Episcopate frequently sends letters to Congress urging a particular stand on this piece of legislation or that piece of legislation on a wide variety of policy matters. I don’t consider these letters to be Church teachings to which all faithful Catholics are bound to. ”

As St. Josemaria Escriva said, “Whenever a cleric talks politics, he is wrong.”

I accept the bishops right to express their prudential judgment in matters. I’m glad you note we are not bound by their prudential judgments. Escpecially as they are frequently wrong. It would be nice for the bishops to be so humble as to note that they are prudential judgments and not, as you note, binding on the laity.

I might disagree with you on bishop’s supporting my position. I would say that Bishop Morlino’s letter which took a neutral stand on the Wisconsin Teachers’ Union matter and which, coming after Archbishop Listecki’s letter, did in fact offer rather overt support for those who were in favor of limiting collective bargaining.

I note there was no qualifier in his statement — no exclusion of social welfare, war and peace, social or cultural concerns, contraception, the gay employment non-discrimination act, etc. I appreciate that unqualified statement.

I accept the bishops right to express their prudential judgment in matters. I’m glad you note we are not bound by their prudential judgments.
I think we have agreement here. God bless.

Escpecially as they are frequently wrong.

On social welfare, I guess always wrong rather than frequently wrong, in your mind. That certainly is your right.

It would be nice for the bishops to be so humble as to note that they are prudential judgments and not, as you note, binding on the laity.

It would. Maybe on the USCCB stationary there should be a tag line on all of their statments addressed to Congress or about legislation.

I might disagree with you on bishop’s supporting my position. I would say that Bishop Morlino’s letter which took a neutral stand on the Wisconsin Teachers’ Union matter…

I did say the Episcopate (i.e. as a class), not individual bishops. Anyway, if you, like Bishop Morlino, take a neutral or agnostic stance on the Wisconsin labor question, I am pleased to hear that. God bless you.

“I note there was no qualifier in his statement — no exclusion of social welfare, war and peace, social or cultural concerns, contraception, the gay employment non-discrimination act, etc. I appreciate that unqualified statement.”

Unqualified to the application of principles, not the principles themselves.

“On social welfare, I guess always wrong rather than frequently wrong, in your mind. That certainly is your right. ”

Not always, frequently. My original point stands.

“It would. Maybe on the USCCB stationary there should be a tag line on all of their statments addressed to Congress or about legislation.”

No. But as with their recent comment about Libya, where they stated they made no comment on the prudential aspects of the intervention, that would be fine.

“I did say the Episcopate (i.e. as a class), not individual bishops.”

There is no such thing as a class as far as bishops teaching. Each teaches his respective diocese.

“Anyway, if you, like Bishop Morlino, take a neutral or agnostic stance on the Wisconsin labor question, I am pleased to hear that. God bless you.”

Bishop Morlino, appropriately, is neutral (though as noted, in a qualified sense.) As a laymen I believe it is a good thing to limit the public unions in Wisconsin.